


The Desolate Branch

by orphan_account



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: BAMF Avengers, Evil Villain is Evil Genius, F/M, Gen, M/M, Non-Canon Characters (who die), Saving the World, Saving the world is stressful, Science Boyfriends, Superheros getting picked off like whoa, Unresolved Sexual Tension, WIP, World Domination Plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2014-03-24
Packaged: 2018-01-16 02:08:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1327945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>“In the 'Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics,' the trajectory of your life is no longer just one straight path to an eventuality, but is instead one path of many, on an ever-branching tree of possibilities.”</em> -Kevin Michel.</p><p>Superheroes are dying. Cut down one by one until there are only a handful left. Part of a plot conducted by a single harrowing figure known only as 'M'. Global ruin is on the horizon with only the Avengers to stand in the way of a madman's sinister plot for complete world domination.</p><p>But things are not always what they seem and there's a twist in even the most classic of tales... </p><p>What has happened once will happen again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lockdown

“Reed Richards was just killed.” 

Tony’s voice echoes around the cavernous gym and stops Steve in his tracks. His wrapped hands fall to swing listlessly at his sides as he processes the statement. The leader of the Fantastic Four—the Avengers closest ally when go-time rolls around and the world needs saving. Dead.

Steve swallows and turns to contemplate Tony. Notices the pallor of his skin, the shocked slump of his body against the doorframe.

The bag swings abandoned behind him as he tracks across the room, grabbing Tony firmly by the shoulders and squeezing too tight. “What happened?” he asks.

Still immersed inside his own head, Tony’s dark eyes stare at Steve’s shoulder as he answers. “No idea.”

\--

The Avengers assemble at Shield and the minute they arrive Fury orders a lockdown of the facility and secures the briefing room himself. Three solid adamantium doors lock into place with whirs and clunks of finality, sealing them inside the bunker with only Fury, Coulson and Hill. 

The Avengers take up their assigned positions at the conference table with Steve in the middle position, flanked by Tony and Thor, followed by Bruce and Natasha on either side of them respectively. Clint stays obstinately in the far corner, ignoring his empty seat next to Natasha. Steve puts the breach in protocol to the back of his mind at the moment, focusing on his own dark thoughts. They’ve drilled for this kind of emergency before, but have never had an actual incident where final-stages lockdown was required. It puts Steve on edge, to have an adversary that would necessitate locking-down six of the most powerful heavy-hitters on the planet. 

If they’re not out there combatting the threat then who is? 

Who _can_?

Steve takes a deep breath and retains his composure. His team will look to him to set the example for how they should react to the code-red lockdown and Steve is fully aware that calm composure is the best response they can make at this juncture without the proper information to combat the threat. They don’t even know what the threat is, but from the way Fury hasn’t stopped micromanaging the bunker protocols he guesses it can’t be anything good. Compliance is their best bet at this stage until they find out what’s going on. Fury will explain in due time. Until then all that remains is to be patient. 

Steve glances around the room to assess the status of his team. 

Natasha is processing the situation with the kind-of passive alertness only she can muster and to her right perched on the buffet-style table by the far wall Clint appears much the same, if slightly more tense. On his right Tony can’t seem to stop moving: feet crossed at the ankles dancing on the table top, fingers tapping along to the same imaginary music. His eyes rove constantly around the room, settling on Fury with a deep scowl he doesn’t even try to hide more often than not. Bruce on his other side is the stillest of all of them, in direct contrast to Tony’s borderline manic energy, and when Steve looks closer he can see the man counting his breaths and breathing very deliberately. Breathing exercises, Steve recognises. Probably a precaution, but Steve looks at Hawkeye anyway and Clint nods back to signal he’ll keep an eye on him. 

Thor, as it turns out, is handling the situation better than anyone. Sitting comfortably with relaxed, regal composure, he watches Hill make starting arrangements with her typical jerky swiftness. A small, amused smile adorns his face as he tracks her hurried strides across the room. Steve wonders briefly how the battle-hardened Thor--Crown Prince of Asgard and commander of legions--can be so unfazed in the face of probable catastrophe, before remembering he probably has no idea the gravity of what’s unfolding. The world is still so strange to him, human ways so antiquated and odd that an occurrence like this must not seem like anything at all to him. Not to Thor who is blind sighted by the new and the strange every day in the most mundane ways. 

He has picked up on the tension though, Steve realises, and is on alert for anything amiss. Though his relaxed posture would deny it, the way his eyes scan the room like a battlefield give him away. Steve should really know better by now not to underestimate him.

Sequestered in the far corner next to the computer array, Clint shifts uneasily. He’s reclined in a deceptively casual sprawl against the wall now, having hopped down from the desk in a fit of restlessness. His fingers twitch for his bow, that is, for the moment, in Shield lock-up along with all their weapons. It’s a precaution that doesn’t sit right with Steve. Feels a little like blindfolding your prized stallion before the big race, but orders are orders. Captain America doesn’t question orders, no matter how much Steve Rogers certainly would like to. 

Natasha looks at Clint carefully and communicates something to him with her eyebrows that Steve can’t even begin to understand. Whatever it is it makes him twitch a reluctant smile and nod, a lot of the tension stripped out of him. He’s still vigilant though. Steve’s seen him glance over at the computer monitors—still blank-- at least four times in the past minute and his sharp eyes sweep over every inch of the room to check for hidden dangers the rest of them could never hope to catch. Clint has always been their eyes in the sky and if he doesn’t want to give up that duty now—even in the heart of shield security—Steve isn’t going to fault him for it. Some healthy paranoia wouldn’t go astray right now. Not with this god-awful feeling in his gut, like maybe something very bad is on the horizon. Something the Avengers may not be ready or able to combat.

Coulson sits straight backed at the centre of the computer bank, typing swiftly and bringing up screens of information Steve cannot decipher. He does notice Tony’s eyes taking it in though and doesn’t miss his quick whispered aside to Bruce—nor Bruce’s subtle headshake and downturned lips as he says something in answer. 

In short order Fury and Hill take up their position across the table from the Avengers and Fury steeples his hands to begin.

“I’ll do you the courtesy of not beating around the bush.” Fury says in his typical brusque manner.

Steve frowns. There’s something wrong with his voice. A brittle quality to his words that puts Steve on high alert and has his body tensing as though expecting a blow. Next to him he sees Thor mimic the movement. They share a glance. If this situation is worrying enough to have the previously-assumed unflappable Director of Shield thoroughly flapped then it’s something for them all to be very concerned about. Natasha sends him a look down the table that echoes his thoughts and he somehow manages to keep his expression obediently neutral. No use in alarming anyone unnecessarily even though Steve’s sure they’ve all picked up on it. 

Under the table, Steve spies Hill put a hand on Fury’s thigh and squeezes gently—a comfort. Steve, having caught the action, bites back a grimace.

This is not good. Not good at all.

Fury gestures for Hill to hand him a ream of paper, flipping over the first stapled page and setting it down in front of him, eyes scanning deftly. Even upside down Steve recognises the universal stamp for ‘Highly Classified’ and notes that much of the information is blacked out. 

Fury looks up at them and meets each of their eyes gravely.

“I’ll be brief. You’re all here because in the past 48 hours 23 of the world’s superheroes have been found dead.”

Fury pauses, presumably to let them take that in, and is met with shocked silence from around the table. 

Tony finds his voice first.

“And you’ve kept this out of the media…how?” He asks, part sarcastic derision, part genuine question. 

“Director?” Steve prompts when Fury is silent too long and Fury slants him a look.

“It was necessary to prevent global panic. If the world knew someone out there was targeting superheroes there would be widespread chaos, destabilisation, riots even. Until the situation is dealt with we couldn’t risk it,” he explains. Pretty much what Steve expected, but not the whole truth by a long shot. Steve stares at Fury and predicably Tony speaks up to voice his thoughts. 

“But that’s not all.” Tony says and Fury sighs.

“No. We received an ultimatum along with the second body. That if news of the killings reached public awareness there would be an explosion in the Capital Building. We’ve had Secret Service, Homeland Security and our own people sweep the premises of course and no such bomb has been found, but we’re not taking any chances. Right now this guy’s just targeting supers and that’s the way we want to keep it.”

Clint, knee tucked up against his chest, snorts rudely. “So we’re bait now?”

Fury sends him a crippling look. “In a sense, but I’d rather you think of it as doing your job Agent Barton. If that isn’t too difficult for you. I seem to remember you doing this kind of thing before without complaint.”

Clint’s expression is almost a sneer and Steve is momentarily taken aback. “I was a bit too unconscious back then to complain about much of anything Director, but don’t worry I’ll do my job. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been called on to be the fall guy.”

“Clint,” Natasha says, a low warning. “Not now.”

Clint makes a frustrated sound, but grits his teeth and closes his mouth obligingly. 

Fury gives them all a disgruntled look, ready to launch into a rant no-doubt questioning their loyalty and dedication, before Thor interrupts.

The Asgardian nods. “You are quite correct Director. At least we few have a chance of fending off these attacks. You poor humans are so very fragile. It would be a catastrophe of the highest order if this madman’s sights moved elsewhere.”

Hill stiffens in her seat at the mention of ‘fragile’, but Fury only nods, shoulders loosening. “Exactly Thor. We need to keep the fight where we have the best chance of success. With all of you.”

There are murmurs of agreement from around the table and neutral silence from Clint who’s watching the exchange with reluctant agreement in his eyes. Natasha stares at the wood-grain table top lost in thought, eyebrows creased with some unidentifiable emotion. 

“Have the other supers been warned?” Steve asks, because it doesn’t sit right with him, the idea that all those people out there might be sitting on their asses waiting to be murdered without even knowing it. 

“We sent out a world-wide alert a few hours ago, around the time we brought you all in.” Fury confirms and Steve breathes a little easier. Fury looks past their heads and beyond, like he can see through the walls of the bunker, across the city and over the sea to lands unknown. “At the moment the rest of the world’s heroes are scattered, divided, without any form of true unity—not like the Avengers. Which is why you’re in the bunker and they’re not. We’ve done what we can to protect them, but they aren’t our priority.”

“Because they’re not in your super special club of heroes? That’s cold Fury,” Tony mocks, but his eyes are hard and flinty.

Fury looks at him, visible eye lit with meaning. 

“Because they can’t deal with this threat on their own,” he corrects lowly. “And with the proper information and battle plan I believe the Avengers can. You’re a team-- a strong team. And you’re the last chance we have to combat this threat.” Fury says, as serious as Steve has ever seen him. 

The table falls silent and even Tony shuts his mouth. There’s a long moment of heavy silence while they all process the call to action.

Steve straightens in his seat, meeting the Director’s eye.

“What do you need us to do sir?” Steve asks in his best Captain America voice. 

Fury smirks.

“Bring up the profile,” Fury tells Coulson, swinging his chair around to get a better view of the screens. Hill copies the movement and the Avengers do the same. Coulson brings up a profile with a single picture of what looks to be the figure of a man who, on closer inspection, appears to be cloaked in shadow from some kind of alleyway. The picture’s too indistinct for Steve to make out his face, or any defining characteristics at all really, but he can tell he’s big. Big, tall and almost inhumanly muscled with a thick cropping of dark hair—though that could just be the shadows. It’s not much of anything to go on. 

“This is the only picture we have of him?” Steve asks.

“Unfortunately yes. Even our best intelligence hasn’t been able to get close enough to get anything clearer. For such a big guy he’s very slippery. And intelligent. As in we don’t find him unless he wants to be found intelligent. For now he’s untouchable.”

Tony gets this look on his face like he thinks that kind of talk is an insult to his intelligence. “Please,” he scoffs, “no one’s untouchable. Not to me. Give me half an hour and a computer and I’ll have lifted every little cyber fingerprint he’s ever left behind. You’ll have your man by sundown and I can go back to my tower, my shower and my lab—hey that rhymed!--sound good?”

Fury gives Tony a measuring look. “It won’t be that easy Stark,” he warns. “This guy’s good. Our best hacker couldn’t even get past his initial firewalls and _he_ was awarded the McArthur genius grant at nineteen.”

“And I got it at twelve.” Stark says with a smirk before pointing out, “your best hacker isn’t me. Just give me a computer so we can all be home in time for dinner ‘kay? I don’t know what kind of catering you have down here but I’m guessing it doesn’t include the California-crust pizza I’m craving and I’m not going within ten metres of a ration bar.”

Fury stares at him a moment. “You get the length of the briefing Stark and not a moment longer.”

Tony grins and makes grabby-hands at the MacBook Hill is holding out with a strained expression. Tony takes it from her and boots it up, typing away immediately in some complicated pattern none of them can keep track of save maybe Bruce who’s looking over his shoulder, idly curious and pointing things out every now and again to a frenzied looking Tony. 

Fury brings their attention back to the profile with an authoritive throat clear that has Steve, Natasha and Clint snapping to attention on instinct. Hill darts an amused look at Natasha who bristles—and Steve’s sure there’s a story there for another time. 

“Though we haven’t been able to get a clear picture of him and our intelligence has been less than promising there are some things we do know,” Fury begins.

Coulson pulls up a separate file on another screen and when Steve looks closer he recognises it as an incident report dated the previous day. He shares a look with Clint.

“We were alerted to the situation when Agent Matthias filed an incident report at 21:00 hours the previous day that mentioned a super under surveillance had not returned from her Karate class as scheduled. Further investigation into the matter found that Wasp- a.k.a Janet Van Dyne-- was found dead on the side of the road by one of her fellow students minutes after she left the building. The death was ruled as a homicide after it was discovered she died from a clean neck-break, but the police currently have no suspects. The scene was impeccably clean, free of incriminating evidence of any kind—like she was killed by a ghost.”

Bruce leans back in his chair and steeples his fingers under his chin in contemplation. Reaching out without seeming to really look he hits a few keys on the MacBook, presumably fixing an error in Tony’s code, and Tony grins at him gratefully. Bruce doesn’t look at him, doesn’t break from his own private train of thought for even a moment, startlingly intelligent eyes focused unerringly on a deeper problem. Steve is caught off guard—as he always is—by the fact that Bruce is a genius in his own right. It’s easy to forget the mild-mannered doctor’s prowess sometimes when Tony’s genius casts such a bright, brilliant light.

Fury’s voice brings him out of his reverie and Steve snaps to attention along with Bruce. Tony keeps working.

“We had no reason to suspect this was anything other than an isolated incident until another super--Hank Pym—was found to have died only hours earlier, and Ben Grimm-- aka The Thing-- an hour before that. Three heroes dead within hours of each other was too much of a pattern for us to overlook.”

At Fury’s behest Coulson brings up a picture array of men and women between the ages of twenty and fifty, all of whom look vaguely familiar. It takes a moment for Steve to recognise them and when he does he feel a deep pang of loss. He swallows.

“Over the course of a few hours we uncovered the deaths of 22 other superheroes with times of death only minutes apart in some cases. The attacks were spread across the globe and due to the logistics of such an attack Shield suspected a terrorist group of some kind was behind the murders. That was, until Reed Richards was executed this morning in the penthouse of the Baxter building.”

Tony stops typing abruptly and screws his eyes shut. 

Tony Stark and Reed Richards had never had the best working relationship, had clashed more than they’d ever synced up. But they were both genius-level inventors who lived to protect the people they cared about and would die to keep the world safe. That kind of bond transcends petty matters of like or dislike. At the very least Steve knows Tony had respected him and would never have wanted to see him dead. No matter how many times he’d threatened it.

Bruce places a hand on Tony’s shoulder and squeezes tight. Tony brings his hand up briefly to squeeze back before going back to typing with increased fervour. 

Steve actually feels a little sorry for this guy whoever he is. There’ll be no hiding from Tony Stark now that’s he’s got that manic glint in his eye, like a bloodhound on a scent. Steve recognises that look. It’s the _I’m going to destroy you and everything you hold dear because I can_ look. Steve is very glad to no longer be on the wrong side of that look. 

Fury continues.

“It was a message.” Fury says and foreboding settles in Steve’s gut again, visions of Chitauri raining down from the sky in a never ending swarm flashing in front of his eyes. Reminding him exactly how high the stakes are. “Left on Richard’s body was a calling card addressed to Shield with only a single name. Not of a group, but the name of a single individual. It hasn’t shown up in any database known and none of my contacts off-world can find any affiliation either. This guy is a complete unknown and Stark I gather from that pissed-off look on your face you’re not having any luck either?”

Tony lets out an irritated breath and shakes his head. “I need more time. This fucker’s good I’ll give you that. His firewalls are impenetrable and his code is downright revelatory, but I’m not out of tricks yet. I’m a motherfucking genius and it’s not just a pretty title there to stroke my ego.”

“Well it looks like you’ve met your match Stark,” Fury says blithely, ignoring Tony’s glare, and gestures for Coulson to pull up a separate file. “He did us the liberty of filling out the standardised Shield entry exam. Which as you well know tests for a number of traits that make up the ideal agent as well as being the most efficient way of measuring IQ ever implemented.”

Natasha leans forward in her seat, eyes sharp. “What did he score?”

Fury looks at her. “Off the charts,” he says quietly. “We’ve never measured a higher score.”

Tony stops typing again and looks up, vaguely affronted. “He scored higher than me?”

Fury steeples his hands and looks up at the ceiling. “You’ll have to remind me what you scored again Stark.”

“Can’t you just pull my score out of your super-handy walking file cabinet,” he gestures to Hill who treats him to a rude gesture in turn, “and check for yourself?”

“193,” Bruce answers for him and Tony shoots him a dirty look.

Steve takes a moment to be suitably astonished by that and notices Clint staring at Stark with vague disbelief. Stark catches the look. “Yes. I am that disgustingly intelligent,” he says cockily. 

Clint snorts. “Genius doesn’t save your ass in a firefight Stark,” he shoots back.

“I beg to differ,” Tony says, probably planning on launching into an argument extoling the merits of intellect-based warfare when Fury interrupts.

“His is 232,” Fury says to resounding shocked silence.

“But that’s…” Steve begins.

“Higher than Da Vinci,” Hill finishes with the appropriate amount of solemnity. 

Bruce sucks in a sharp breath and Clint goes white. Steve’s heart pounds and Tony loses steam completely, looking pole-axed.

“That’s impossible,” Natasha says, her usually steady voice shaking slightly.

“Apparently not. The only other score we’ve recorded anywhere near that mark is sitting in this room.”

Fury looks out over all of them, holding their gazes in turn. 

“This man is a threat to global security and every person on the planet-- super or otherwise. From this moment on we are on red-alert lock-down until a plan of action is formed.”

“What’s he calling himself?” Steve asks because for whatever reason it seems necessary to put a name to the shadowy, menacing figure that’s threatening everything he holds dear like it’s no challenge at all. Like picking off every superhero on the planet is just a game.

“M,” Fury says. “He calls himself M.”


	2. Freeze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce and Tony turn to science for answers. Then when that fails, they turn to science for fun.

“I can’t believe Fury wants us to just sit here and do nothing. I mean, is that a recipe for disaster or what?” Tony says indignantly, palming his scotch and swirling the amber liquor around the glass with absent-minded carelessness. “Or maybe duck— _sitting duck_.” Tony shakes his head. “Fury has rocks in his head, I swear.” 

Bruce listens to Tony’s stream of consciousness with half an ear, caught up in re-reading the Avengers mission brief. It pretty much amounts to Fury telling them to stay hidden and out of the public eye so as not to attract the attention of M’s network. Because he has to have a network. Hired guns sent out with the express purpose of tracking and killing superheroes all over the globe. Wiping them out once and for all. 

Bruce shakes his head to clear it and looks down at his monitor which is currently running a broad-spectrum algorithm in conjunction with Shield’s satellite network to try and track M using BMI variables. Facial recognition is more accurate, but they don’t have anything resembling a clear picture of his face and besides, Bruce figures there aren’t that many eight-foot-nothing giants with musculature like the Hulk out there in the world. Or he didn’t, until the scanner started picking up every tall body-builder, professional athlete and private security with access to steroids and muscle builders in the western hemisphere. Even then none of them fit the specs entirely and most are less than a fifty percent match to M. 

The equation’s still working and they’ve only run about sixty percent of the globe so far, but Bruce isn’t holding out much hope. He suspects the only reason they’re even working on tracking M in conjunction with Shield tech is that Fury wants to keep Tony busy and out of trouble. Bruce doesn’t blame him, even if it means he’s wasting his time on a futile pursuit. 

Tony’s on edge. Well, they all are, but Tony especially. He’s itching to do something, fix something. The man’s a mechanic by trade after all. Fixing things is what he does. Tony doesn’t deal well with problems he can’t solve.

“The tower’s secure, but so was the Baxter Building. There’s no telling what we’re up against and I can’t protect against something I don’t understand,” he says faintly, sounding lost and far away.

Bruce takes off his glasses and looks away from his computer monitor towards Tony, eerie blue light flooding his face in the relative dark of the lab. “True, but the tower has better security than the Baxter Building. The kind of tech Reed could scarcely imagine. It’ll be enough.” Bruce says. He takes in the sight of his friend, from the wrinkled button-down, to the day-old stubble on his jaw, to the glazed, vulnerable quality of his eyes. “Fury knows what he’s doing Tony,” Bruce says softly.

Tony snorts, momentary weakness bled out of him in an instant. “Fury’s covering his ass Bruce. He knows we’re the only chance he’s got of stopping this guy and what’s he doing? Locking us away like this is a goddam fairy-tale and we’re helpless damsels who can only be kept safe if we’re out of commission.” Tony makes a helplessly frustrated gesture. “We should be out there finding this guy, stopping the threat at its source, and instead we’re under house-arrest while Fury’s goons blunder about trying to find this guy without any clue what they’re doing. It’s insanity.” Tony jumps up on the lab bench, upending his scotch and slamming the glass down. He points at Bruce. “Mark my words big guy, out illustrious director is shaken. He’s lost his nerve and we’re paying the price for his fear.”

Bruce takes a moment to process that. The idea of Fury being afraid of anything is patently ridiculous, but Bruce would be lying if he said he didn’t notice the man had seemed a tad off his game during the briefing yesterday. 

Still. 

“Even if you’re right and Fury is shaken-up,” Bruce allows and Tony raises an eyebrow at the doubt in his voice. “It’s not like he doesn’t have cause to be. Besides, Fury always comes around in the end. We’ve just got to give him time to get his head together. Like with Prague.”

It’d been a hell of a mission: a raid of a heavily armed chemical weapons facility. Natasha had been taken off-guard and gravely injured during the fire-fight that ensued when they were discovered (mostly because the combined presence of Tony and Thor was pretty much the opposite of subtle). After that the Avengers hadn’t been on their A-game and were quickly overcome while trying to fight and simultaneously protect their injured teammate. Fury had ordered the team to retreat and leave Natasha behind since it looked like she wasn’t going to make it out in her condition. Clint had refused the order out of hand and the Avengers had followed his lead. Fury had been indignant, but when the Avengers inevitably paid the price for putting loyalty above the mission he was there with an extraction team to get them out safely.

Say what you will about Fury, but he looks after his team. Bruce has come to respect rather than fear him over time because of that. Even the Hulk, who takes exception to government-types, is relatively non-opposed and will listen to his orders as well as Steve’s on the field. 

“Right,” Tony says, rubbing a hand over his eyes. He chuckles to himself. “You’re right as usual. Of course you are.”

Tony looks over at him, face oddly solemn. “Seriously though. I don’t like the idea of being a fixed target for this M character. We don’t know enough about him to protect against his attack when it comes. And what we do know isn’t very encouraging on the whole confidence front.” Tony looks out over the lab, like a ruler over his empire. “I’ve never been up against anyone smarter than me,” he admits, sounding somewhat peeved by the fact. 

“What was it you said not too long ago about intelligence fearing intelligence?” Bruce asks innocently, quirking a half-smile. Only Tony could be focusing on the threat to his ego when there’s the actual threat of a madman out there killing superheroes with a ruthless success rate.

Tony glares at him. “Well I was talking about Shield then. Totally doesn’t count since I’m not a shady government agency.”

“Just the face of a morally questionable government-funded empire,” Bruce says dryly, bringing up the African continent match-rates. Unsurprisingly there are even less spec-matches here than in India. Not that he expected anything different with the population being largely underfed. The sooner they catch this guy the better. Hulk doesn’t do well in cages, even one so well-equipped as Stark Tower. Bruce can already feel him testing the edges of his control.

“I’ll have you know that I cut those ties the minute I stopped making weapons. Stark Industries is completely privatised now, but touché for thinking to use my sordid past against me Doctor Banner,” Tony says, grinning like a proud teacher. 

Bruce rolls his eyes. “Sometimes I think you forget you’re not the only genius in the room.”

“Don’t take it personally. I’ve been told I’m a particularly self-involved individual.” There’s a moment of silence and then Tony comes around the side of the lab-bench, cocking his hip against the table next to Bruce’s elbow. “What _is_ your IQ? You’ve never said before, but I’d be willing to bet it’s close to mine,” he asks, sounding genuinely curious.

“Never got tested,” Bruce admits with a shrug, watching the progress bar fill to sixty-seven percent.

“What, not even by Shield?” Tony asks, surprise colouring his voice. 

“Technically it’s the other guy who’s an Avenger,” Bruce points out, ignoring Tony’s frown. “Shield’s only really interested in him and it’s not like he’d sit down for a written exam. I don’t think he can even hold a pen without snapping it. Not that I’ve tested the theory.”

“We’ve got time,” Tony says, getting that glint in his eye that promises Bruce a lot of sleepless nights in the near future attempting to test just that. Bruce has tried time and time again to put a stop to Tony’s frankly worrying obsession with the other guy without much luck. Bruce mostly just graciously ignores it now and sticks to hoping that Tony will get bored and move on soon. He swears the man must have a death wish to play with the other guy the way he does. Tony cocks his head, snapping out of his reverie. His eyes sharpen and lock on Bruce. “Does being a tortured human-monster hybrid have to come with a total misconception of your place in the world? Don’t think I didn’t see you totally misunderstanding like, _everything_ , just then. I’ll make you see you’re just as much a part of this team as the big guy before long, just you watch.”

“Sure Tony,” Bruce says mildly.

“You don’t believe me,” Tony says in a similar tone and leans down until he’s about an inch away from Bruce face. Bruce blinks at him, eyes as big as moons and Tony smiles. “That’s okay. I’m Tony Stark. I always turn people around to my way of thinking in the end.”

Bruce swallows, throat suddenly thick. “Well good luck with that,” he says dimly. Tony’s smile only widens, becoming sharklike and more than a little worrying, but it’s gone in a second.

Then Tony’s straightening up and looking at Bruce probingly from a more respectable distance. “You’ve really never been curious about how you measure up, y’know, in the scheme of things? IQ’s a big deal in the circles we mix in.”

It’s not that Bruce isn’t curious. It’s just never really seemed that important. Bruce had better things to do while he was paying his dues—doing time as a vagrant doctor fleeing across the third world—better things than taking an IQ test at least. 

Bruce pauses before answering. 

“I know I’m smart enough to do the work I want to do. That’s always been good enough for me. I never really saw the point in putting people in boxes meant to dictate their learning potential. Personally, I think that kind of practice is limiting.”

Tony stares at Bruce like he’s grown a second head and huffs a laugh. “What am I going to do with you?” Tony mutters, but his eyes are strangely fond. “No sense of healthy curiosity.”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” he says vaguely with a small smile.

Tony stares at him and for a moment there’s something dark and promising in his eyes that makes Bruce’s breath catch. Then it’s gone and Bruce can breathe again.

“Speaking of healthy curiosity, I was serious before,” Tony says, jumping from thought to thought like stepping-stones in a pond. 

Bruce raises a questioning eyebrow and Tony huffs, annoyed that he hasn’t caught on immediately. “About our security. If M could break into the Baxter Building he could break in here.”

Bruce crosses his arms over his chest, brow crinkling thoughtfully as he scans his knowledge of the building.

“I thought the Baxter Building had its own security?” Bruce asks, half to himself, half to Tony. “Whatever private security measures the Fantastic Four took, they still would’ve had to work within the existing mainframe to make their calibrations. Not to mention they didn’t have an arc-reactor to maintain a separate power grid the way we do here. Whatever changes he might have made wouldn’t have been as effective as those we have here if only because he wouldn’t have had the power to maintain them.”

Tony nods pensively, spinning around and beginning to pace in a tight circle next to Bruce's lab-bench. “All valid points, except the penthouse was on a separate power grid my good doctor.”

Bruce’s eyebrows fly up to his hairline. “Really?”

“Richard’s experiments used up too much power to function off of the city grid. Couldn’t have him blacking out Manhattan with every breakthrough,” Tony points out and Brue nods slowly. That does sound like Reed.

Something about Tony’s words snags his attention. “What kind of power are we talking about here?” Bruce asks, the beginnings of a theory emerging in his minds-eye. Bruce brings up the tower specs on the monitor with a few quick swipes and notes the infinite energy potential of the arc reactor. “Because I doubt it was self-sustaining.” He does a bit of digging and finds the specs on the Baxter Building, digging deeper until he finds the separate penthouse energy grid. Something clicks in his brain when he sees it and the theory solidifies in an instant, unfolding inside his mind easy as anything.

Bruce looks up from his monitor and catches Tony’s eye. Fury had said yesterday that neither Shield nor the police had been able to figure out how M had gotten in as there were no signs of forced entry or tampering, but if they were on a separate energy grid…

“Finite resources run out.” Bruce says, heavy with implication. 

Tony pauses between strides, catching the end of Bruce’s thought like it came from his own mind. “You think something drained the power?” Tony deduces, eyes turning inward, probability equations running behind his eyes. “Right,” he says faintly. “That would make sense. It would be the only way to get in without cracking the encryption. The perfect plan really. Reed would have used the city grid as a back-up generator in case their power went out—time-delayed of course so M could get in, do the job and get out before it kicked in. It wasn’t widely known that the penthouse had a separate power source so when the police showed up the lights were on and everybody was none the wiser.” Tony pauses. “The only question is what drained the power?”

“Who,” Bruce clarifies faintly, an ugly picture of what happened forming in his mind: a behemoth of a man plunging the world into darkness, sneaking up behind Reed and snuffing out his life like a candle-flame. Gone in an instant. 

“M,” Tony says heavily, like he’s remembering all over again. 

Bruce swallows. “It’s just a theory,” he says.

Tony stops and looks at him carefully. “But you believe it.”

“It’s what I’d do,” Bruce admits.

Tony nods slowly.

“We need access to the police report. I don’t give a rat’s ass what Fury says,” Tony decides, striding over and getting in Bruce’s space to fiddle with his monitor. He hacks into the NYPD central database and searches for the report. 

“What the fuck?” he breathes.

Bruce looks over his shoulder, cheek brushing the skin of Tony’s upper arm. “What?”

“There,” Tony points out and Bruce stops breathing for a moment in shock.

“It’s gone,” he says. And it is. There’s no sign of anything. Even the recording of Sue’s frantic 911 call is gone-- nothing more than a track of empty, rolling static. 

“Without a trace,” Tony confirms after he’s searched every inch of the NYPD paper trail for clues. “Not even an incident report. No record that Reed even died. It’s a complete case wipe.”

Bruce’s eyes scan the monitor. “But surely the officers, the first responders, would know this stuff was missing.”

“Not necessarily,” Tony says darkly. “In a system like ours all someone would have to do to make a man disappear was hack in, file a false motion to move the case to federal jurisdiction and intercept it before it got there. Then you’ve got the local PD happily thinking federal’s taking care of a high profile case and federal not thinking much of anything at all, because they have no idea anything’s happened.”

“But Reed was a scientist, a genius, a superhero. He was always in the news. Surely the federal government would know if he was dead. They keep tabs on people like us,” Bruce says, thinking of all the times Ross nearly caught him in their cat and mouse game across the globe. The government doesn’t let go of their property Bruce knows from experience. He can’t imagine them ignoring something like this.

“Oh they do,” Tony says, sliding Bruce’s pen between his knuckles dexterously. “For the given definition of federal government, and last I looked they were doing a pretty good job of covering this all up weren’t they?”

Bruce pauses, remembering in a rush of clarity Fury telling them about the ultimatum threatening a bomb in the Capital Building. He swallows. “So M’s got Shield keeping the deaths out of the news and running interference with the police himself.”

“Covering the paper-trail on both fronts,” Tony finishes. “This guy really has it all figured out…”

They sit in silence for a moment.

“He can’t get in here the same way,” Bruce says when Tony keeps silent, trying to placate the worry weighing down his shoulders. “You can’t shut off a self-sustaining energy source without destroying it. M won’t be pulling the same trick twice—he can’t”

Tony sighs and Bruce almost jolts to feel it against his neck. He didn’t realise they were sitting so close together. He doesn’t move away. Neither does Tony.

“We don’t know what he can do Bruce.” Tony begins wearily and his tone is enough to have Bruce straightening in concern. “We don’t know anything about him except he gives Hulk a run for his money in the muscles department, which is worrying in and of itself. Never mind when you add in his propensity for silent unpredictable execution of even the most capable heroes in the world and the fact that his IQ means he can think circles around both of us.” Tony runs a hand through his hair and looks at Bruce. For the first time in a long time he looks frightened. “What if I can’t stop him?” he whispers. 

Bruce puts a hand on Tony’s shoulder, brows furrowing. “I’d say I have complete confidence in your ability to protect us, but I doubt that would help right now when you’re rivalling me for the title of team sad-sack.” Tony smiles, but it’s a shadow of its normal brilliance. Bruce peers closer. “What I will do instead is offer you my help.” Tony quirks an eyebrow in a concession to curiosity that almost makes Bruce smile. “I can’t say I know a great deal about mechanical-engineering, but I have it on good authority that I’m a genius and I tend to pick things up pretty quickly on top of that. I’m also a dab hand with programming. I can help you sift through the tower security protocols: hardware and software, update some stuff. Invent a robot defender with machine guns and laser-beams to guard the entrances or something.” 

Tony does grin at that, straightening and looking at Bruce with interest. “I’m not sure about the laser beams, but I did recently manage to construct a freeze-ray that might work.”

Bruce’s brain stalls, every nerd fantasy he’s ever had about this moment making him flood with adolescent glee. “Seriously?” he says and can’t help it if it comes out a bit breathy, a bit awed.

Tony grins harder. “You bet. I’ve come a long way since comic-books and trading cards, but the heart remembers. I finally got around to doing it and my inner-tween was so deliriously happy about it I might’ve had an asthma attack if I hadn’t grown out of them by college.” Tony pauses for a moment. “Want to try it out?”

Bruce takes the requisite moment to imagine Tony Stark as an asthmatic geek reading comics in his basement before considering the proposal. It takes roughly 0.25 seconds. “Definitely.”

They spend hours sneaking around the tower freezing stuff for the hell of it. Bruce feels a bit guilty at first until he realises that technically all the stuff is Tony’s anyway so it’s not like they’re doing anything slanderous. 

They start with small things first: an odd lamp, a stray bookend on one of the hundreds of bookcases, a bottle of kitchen-cleaner under the sink—just things that Bruce suspects Tony chooses just to fuck with people at the most random of times. Eventually they graduate to bigger things: a chair in one of the dozen studies, a shower stall in the gym, a weathered leather recliner pushed into the intern’s break-room in R&D (Tony giggles like a teenager during that one). 

Then they really do start to fuck with people.

Tony takes one look at Natasha waking down the hall ahead of them, gun in hand, and walks the other way—but apart from her they pretty much get everyone. Thor leaves Mjolnir propping open the door to the roof while he does his weird Asgardian prayer rituals (and who do gods pray to anyway?) and the mighty hammer becomes their first victim. From there it becomes a game of what’s the most high-risk item they can freeze belonging to one of the other Avengers before they get caught. They sneak into Clint’s room and find his bow and arrow missing, choosing instead to freeze the air-vents in his level to inhibit his annoying/creepy habit of using them to jump out at people when they least expect it. Then they go to find Steve’s Shield. They’re not sure it’ll actually freeze at first, but after a few hits it does, welding itself to the wall it’s resting against in the dining room while Steve’s making dinner and rendering it immovable for a while. 

Soon after annoyed shouts and frustrated groans ring throughout the tower, and Tony and Bruce collapse against the closest wall, snigger like teenagers. They high-five.

At dinner Cap lectures them into the floor for it (well mostly Tony, but he does eye Bruce disappointedly every now and again like he can’t believe he let himself be dragged into one of Tony’s juvenile schemes—if only he knew Bruce was a willing co-conspirator). Natasha—after she helps Clint free himself from the air vents they unwittingly trapped him in—joins them at the table and smirks at Tony like she knows he was too chicken-shit to come after her. Tony, feeling ruffled, turns the look on Clint and goads him into shooting peas at him through his straw with disgusting accuracy. Bruce listens to Tony bait Clint with comments about voyeurism, shaking his head and sharing a look with Natasha—something along the lines of _boys will be boys¬_ —which he should probably feel more weird about than he does. Thor stops the conversation by slamming his hammer down on the floor, ruining a large section of tile, but cracking the ice encasing the hammer quite completely—declaring that what they all really need is a drink.

Or in his words: “Friends would it not put out minds at ease to cease our quarrelling and partake in some ale?”

After the last couple of days Bruce can’t help but agree.

After that they’d cracked open one of Tony’s best bottles of scotch and gotten well and truly blitzed. All except Steve who took it upon himself to get a snoring Clint to bed safely, slinging his arm around his waist and dragging him off, Natasha --an enviably composed drunk—following in their wake like a shadow.

 

A while later it’s just Thor, Bruce and Tony.

Thor, quite content to stay where he is spread-limbed on the couch, is already asleep with his mouth wide open. Bruce is near his legs, sitting with his back against the arm of the couch, Tony’s head in his lap.

Tony’s eyes are half-lidded when they look up at Bruce. “Thank you,” he says, voice rough with drink.

Bruce runs a hand through his shock of black hair with the kind of self-assuredness he only has when he’s drunk. “Hmm?” he questions vaguely, slow-witted and pleasantly hazy.

Tony reaches up and fists his shirt, presses a hand to his skin through the open-v of his shirt. “For knowing what to say.”

Bruce pauses, brain stumbling over itself to try and comprehend that. When it comes to him, Bruce smiles too wide and slides a hand down Tony’s neck to the skin between his neck and shoulder. He squeezes. “You worry too much. We’re a team. We’re supposed to work together and help each other out. It doesn’t have to all be on you,” he says, half-mumbling. He’s so tired suddenly. “I can--” he yawns “--I can help. Whatever you need.”

Tony’s looking up at him, eyes remarkably clearer. “Man,” he breathes, the hand at Bruce’s chest sliding up his neck to hold his jaw. “I so do not deserve you.”

Bruce smiles sleepily, eyes dropping closed. He feels Tony’s hand guiding his head back to rest against Thor’s thigh on the edge of the couch, the weight of his head leaving his lap suddenly. Bruce hums contentedly when he feels Tony’s warmth beside him, steadying him. “But you have me,” he mumbles, because it seems important that Tony knows that for some reason. 

A hand runs through his hair this time and Bruce lets the sound of a strong heartbeat and even breathing lull him to sleep. Before he completely slips away Bruce thinks he hears Tony speak again, but it must be a trick of the alcohol because there’s no way Tony Stark would ever say those words to him—no matter how much Bruce would love to hear them. 

Bruce wakes up in his own bed the next morning with no recollection of how he got there. There’s a note on his night-stand as well as a glass of water with some aspirin. He slips on his glasses. The note reads: _meet me in the lab when you’re done slacking Banner. We’ve got robot guards to assemble—Tony._

Bruce smiles to himself, downs the aspirin and flops back on the bed with only the vague recollection of something significant happening last night. Eventually he brushes it off as his imagination. 

Bruce gets ready for work and doesn’t think about it again. 

When he gets to work Tony doesn’t mention anything, and if every now and again Tony looks at him in a way that has nothing to do with science, or friendship, or team-loyalty, but is eminently more than all those things—well—Bruce doesn’t notice.

 

_“But you have me.”_

_“You have no idea Bruce… no idea how much I wish that was true.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Please for the love of god if you've somehow procured a crystal ball and have figured out the villain of this piece already DO NOT mention it in the comments. Spoilers are not cool. Thanks!
> 
> At the moment I plan for this to be between 25,000 and 50,000 words so strap in for the long haul people :)
> 
> I hope you're as intrigued and excited as I am!


End file.
